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Bellum Alexandrinum Cynthia Damon, et al. Society for Classical Studies TEI XML encoding: Samuel J. Huskey Programming for automatic generation of TEI XML: Virgina K. Felkner Coauthor of content related to section 2.5: Dallas Simons Coauthor of content related to sections 12.1–2 and 13.5: Tom Vozar Coauthor of content related to section 26.1–2: Marcie Persyn Coauthor of content related to sections 35.3 and 36.4–5: Maria Kovalchuk Coauthor of content related to sections 47.2, 49.1, and 49.2–3: Tim Warnock Coauthor of content related to section 60.2: Isabella Reinhardt Coauthor of content related to sections 63.5 and 66.3–4: Brian Credo Coauthor of content related to sections 67.1 and 68.1: Amelia Bensch-Schaus Coauthor of content related to sections 72.2–3 and 74.4: Wes Hanson First Edition The Digital Latin Library 650 Parrington Oval Carnegie Building 101 Norman OK 73071 USA The University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 2022 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-SA 4.0) Library of Digital Latin Texts Edited by Samuel J. Huskey 1 ​ Born digital. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 35.3 Maria Kovalchuk and Cynthia Damon Cuius itineris has esse certas constat opportunitates, quod in locis superioribus nullus impetus repentinus accidere hostium poterat et quod Cappadocia his iugis subiecta magnam commeatus copiam erat subministratura.“And it is agreed that these are the indubitable advantages of this route: the fact that on higher ground no sudden attack of enemies could occur, and the fact that Cappadocia, adjacent to these ridges, was going to supply a great abundance of provision(s).” has esse certas constat opportunitates scripsimus (cf. 31.6), nisi mauis cum ϛ teste Oudendorp post opportunitates constat supplere | has esse certas opportunitates MUSTV | hae erant certae opportunitates ϛ teste Oudendorp | has esse certas opportunitates Scaliger | has esse certas opportunitates cognouerat Klotz | has esse cernebat opportunitates Vielhaber1869, 570 (cf. BC 3.69.4) | has est secutus opportunitates Larsen coll. BC 1.1.3 et Cic. Off. 1.35 | duas est consecutus opportunitates Landgraf 1891b coll. BC 1.39.4 || hostium MUSTV | an secludendum ut glossema? In chapters 34–35 Domitius orders Pharnaces to withdraw from Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, which had been the kingdoms of Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes, Roman allies. Pharnaces withdraws from Cappadocia but not from Lesser Armenia. Consequently, Domitius marches towards Armenia with troops, traveling W-E along a ridge between Cappadocia (to the south) and Armenia (to the north). Incertus specifies two advantages of this route in a sentence whose syntax is incomplete. The main clause is transmitted as follows: cuius itineris has esse certas opportunitates This is printed in many editions, including those of Scaliger (1635) and Nipperdey (1847), presumably on the assumption that a uerbum noscendi could be understood from instituit two sentences earlier. But it is not obvious that iter facere instituit will launch a train of thought, and if it does, the thought is immediately interrupted by an eighteen-word topographical parenthesis (Nam … Armenia). In some recentiores and the editio princeps the sentence is rewritten thus: cuius itineris hae erant certae opportunitates ϛ A less drastic repair is to supply a finite verb to govern the indirect statement, e.g.: cuius itineris has esse certas opportunitates uidit Forchhammer (1852, 84) cuius itineris has esse certas opportunitates cognouerat Klotz (1927, ad loc.) cuius itineris has esse cernebat opportunitates Vielhaber (1869, 570)Although cernere usually denotes visual perception rather than realization in the corpus Caesarianum, it does govern indirect statement at BC 3.69.4 cum … Pompeium adesse … cernerent. For Vielhaber’s argument see note ​. But the absence of a main verb is not the only problem here. The adjective certas has been suspected; indeed Scaliger excised it, presumably on stylistic grounds, since it does not affect the syntax.Cf. Vielhaber (1869, 570) “Aehnlich ist vielleicht … in den wenig passenden certas das Verb cernebat vesteckt,” and Larsen (1886, 18): “Verum non modo infinitivus non ferri potest sed etiam ‘certas’, sub quo sine dubio error aliquis latet.” In our view none of these solutions is satifactory, not even the solution adopted in the most recent editions, Klotz’ cognouerat. Indirect statement, whether by implication or emendation, creates a problem here: the deictic has, which is the subject of the indirect statement, points to the following quod clauses, but the indicative verbs in those clauses set them outside of the indirect statement. So either the deictic The deictic his in the second quod clause works normally, referring to the terrain under discussion in the narrative. or the moodCf. 70.2 monuit … ne … nimis eo gloriarentur beneficio quod auxilio Pompeio non misissent, where eo points forward to the substantive clause quod … non misissent, and similarly 16.3 Haec … Caesar suis exposuerat ut hoc maiore animo contenderent quod omnium salutem sibi commendatam uiderent, where hoc in the purpose clause points forward to the substantive clause quod … uiderent. Possibly also 24.6 hoc … quod, although the quod clause here may be causal. is wrong. Larsen (1886, 18–19) proposed a different construction: cuius itineris has est secutus opportunitates In support of his emendation he cited BC 1.1.3 sin Caesarem respiciant atque eius gratiam sequantur as a parallel for the abstract object of sequor and Cic. Off. 1.35 sed credo aliquid secutor, opportunitatem loci maxime for the pursuit of opportunity. By replacing esse certas with est secutus Larsen also addressed the problem of certas. However, Larsen’s paleographical argument (-us misread as -as) is rather weak. Landgraf (1891b, 12–13) developed Larsen’s emendation in two ways: cuius itineris duas est consecutus opportunitates For the main verb he substituted one better paralleled in the corpus Caesarianum, and he changed has to duas, citing in support BC 1.39.4: Quo facto duas res consecutus est, a particularly apt parallel since it too is followed by two indicative quod clauses.Andrieu 2002 [1954] ad loc. incorrectly reports Landgraf’s proposal as has est consecutus opportunitates. But certas does not seem indefensible. The adjective is fairly common in the corpus Caesarianum, occuring more than forty times even outside the formulas certior fio and certum est. It modifies a wide range of nouns: winds, places, routes, people, military units, news, days, quantities, times, military formations, etc. It modifies hoped-for advantages at BC 3.110.4 fugitiuis omnibus nostris certus erat Alexandriae receptus certaque uitae condicio, where receptus and uitae condicio are as abstract as opportunitates.Cf. BG 7.37.3 certissimam Galliae uictoriam. Similarly future-oriented abstractions appear in negative formulations such as BG 5.29.5 quis hoc sibi persuaderet sine certa spe Ambiorigem ad eius modi consilium descendisse, and Hirt. 8.32.1 nec se sine certa pernicie … putarent prouinciae fines intrare posse. Scaliger might object that certa opportunitas is not quite the right expression for the first “advantage” mentioned in our passage, namely, the impossibility of a surprise attack on higher ground (quod in locis superioribus nullus impetus repentinus accidere hostiumIn the apparatus we suggest the excision of hostium as a gloss. Elsewhere in the Bellum Alexandrinum and everywhere in the corpus subjective genitives are adjacent to impetus, either after it (8.4 impetus hostium, 17.4 impetus nostrorum, 44.3 impetum Octauii) or before it (27.5 and 29.5 quorum impetum, 40.3 uincentium impetum). It seems superfluous here, and this part of the sentence needs nothing else. poterat): such an attack might be unlikely, but would one guarantee with certas that it was impossible? However, it seems unlikely that certas arose here by scribal innovation, whether from secutus or consecutus. There is also no reason emend esse, apart from the above-mentioned difficulty caused by the indirect statement. So we preferred a different approach, supplying a verb that can govern the accusative adjective and the infinitive without creating the expectation that the quod clauses pointed to by has should have subjunctive verbs. Like one of the manuscripts cited by Oudendorp (1737, 810–811 n. 3Dübner (1867, 1.xxi) calls it the Bongarsianus tertius; Brown was not able to identify it (1972, 5 n. 1). ), we supply constat: cuius itineris has esse certas constat opportunitates With constat the point of view is in the narrative present, which suits both has and the indicative verbs in the substantive clauses.Caesar uses both constat (BG 6.25.5) and constabat (11x) with indirect statement, Incertus and Hirtius only the present form (31.6, Hirt. 8 pr. 4). All three authors also use constare in the subjunctive and with other constructions, but these passages provide no help for ours. In our passage constabat might also work, to judge by the (imperfect) parallel at BG 7.43.3, with its parenthetical quod clause: constabat inter omnes—quod iam ipse Caesar … cognouerat—dorsum esse eius iugi prope aequum. According to Dübner (1867, ad loc.) the scribe supplied it after opportunitates, i.e., at the end of its clause. We prefer to place it after certas, i.e., between an adjective and the noun it modifies. This unusual word order, which is well attested in the Bellum Alexandrinum,Cf., e.g., 17.1 in suam redigeret potestatem, 37.4 triniis firmabantur subsidiis, 37.4 media collocabantur acie, 38.3 suam non producere aciem, 48.3 speciosum reddebant … amorem, 52.1 quintam fore in Hispania legionem, 52.3 proximum gladio traicit lictorem, 52.4 leuibus sauciat plagis, 58.1 potentem opponeret dignitatem, 61.6 necessarium consumeret frumentum. On hyperbaton as a feature of Incertus’ style see Gaertner and Hausburg 2013, 36–38 with bibliography. permits a slightly better (but admittedly weak) palaeographical argument: omission of a word starting with c (or perhaps with an abbreviation for con-) after another word starting with c.We also considered the possiblity of adding the verb after cuius itineris, since in two of its three occurrences in the corpus constat begins its sentence (31.6, Hirt. 8 pr. 4), and a position after the connecting relative is a close as it can get to the beginning here. In any case, the supplement constat, which is not even mentioned in recent editions, seems to us worth considering.